In Camera
by woollymitts
Summary: I am more than a little taken with Kate and Caroline in Last Tango in Halifax. This is a oneshot but there might be more if I am encouraged. Something to amuse me until season two is up and running. The usual disclaimers. I am not the puppet master. That'll be Sally Wainwright. I am just borrowing them.
1. Chapter 1

I am just borrowing them for a little lunch break jolly. Promise to return them in as good a condition as I found them, if Sally Wainwright and the Beeb ask nicely.

IN CAMERA, Part 1 of ?

"Thirty eight and still an idiot." Kate thought to herself. She pushed the drawer of her desk closed and drummed the tired patina of scratches and ancient ink stains of the desktop. She had tried to mark F9's haphazard conjugations of the irregular pluperfect passive, but it had been hard to concentrate on writing encouraging comments when most of the test papers were decorated with a generous smattering of errors and random guesses.

She was berating herself for being as infatuated as a year nine pupil, mooning hopelessly over some impossibly sophisticated sixth former. Kate usually felt only a nostalgic pity for the school's swooning fools. Now she was a paid up member of the tragic club. She might even have been awarded a lifetime fellowship.

She needed to escape the stifling classroom. With more purpose, she stepped lightly down the corridor, entering the school's chapel via a wooden sidedoor. Climbing up a small spiral staircase, she came to a tiny alcove, that was a little ambitiously described in the school's prospectus as the clerestory. Glancing over the balcony, Kate checked that the pews were empty. Classes had finished a couple of hours earlier, so it was unlikely that anyone would be in there. Settling on the long wooden bench, she focused on the stops before her, looking for inspiration. As an idea formed in her mind, she pulled on a few of the ivory knobs and began to play.

Despite the precarious height of her heels, Caroline always strode the hallways with purpose. She exuded the necessary invincible confidence of a competent headmistress. It was of little semblence to her inner self that was roiling with doubt and distress. Her life had unravelled in mere weeks. Keeping her busy standoffish outward appearance was a habit borne out of years of pretending self belief, until she almost believed in it herself. John's betrayal had shattered that fragile illusion and reminded her that she had somehow become a dreary middle-aged harridan. The rumours of their separation had made her even more of a social pariah, as though her divorce was a form of communicable disease. Friends, well, they were mostly John's, had avoided her. Staff members were possibly even more timid than usual.

Only her mother and Kate had tried to understand. Spotting that the tiredness etched round Caroline's mournful eyes as more than stress from the impending Independent Schools Inspectorate visit, Kate had taken her out for lunches, insisting, despite Caroline's protestations of too much work. "You can't manage on coffee, especially if you don't do the cigarettes," Kate had urged her. The lunches became a weekly occurrence. Then a regular phonecall of a Sunday morning to check in on her. At times, Caroline had a stirring of something long forgotten, but she had dismissed it as improbable, possibly impertinent. Kate was assured, friendly, generous in her kindness but not anything more. But there had been glances when Kate had thought Caroline was not looking. A certain attentiveness, she dimly recognised but had not experienced in decades.

Caroline had thought that she was the only person in the school in the fading Autumn evening. Frank, the caretaker, had locked up all but the main building where her office was situated. But she could hear music, and propelled down the corridors she followed the sound. She noted with a wry smile, that Kate was the source of the music. Lit only by a small arched window, and the dim glow of the stops she had engaged, Kate seemed to haloed in the sun's rays like a seraphim.

Caroline quietly slipped alongside her onto the organist's stool. The warm pressure of a hip pressed against her made Kate stop abruptly. Blushing, Kate began to mutter that she was doing a run through of some of the pieces for the Candlemas concert. Caroline, interrupted,

"In eight week's time? Would that all my staff were as conscientious."

She smiled slightly at Kate's discomfort.

"So, tell me, why is this anthem, so moving?"

Kate started to play again, hoping that the steady rhythm of her fingers would help her find composure, as a new ditty started up in her head in annoying counterpoint, ("Kate and Caroline sitting in a tree, K.I...") Coughing slightly to recover herself, the music teacher began to explain.

"Hmm. It's a bit of an adrenaline rush-the rising arpeggios. They ramp up the tension... ("S.S.I.N.G") "And just when you think they will reach a climax, they fall away again."

She swallowed,

"Then, although, we have all heard it a million times and everyone knows what is next, when the brass come in."

Kate placed her hands over Caroline's and guided her fingers onto the keys of the lower manual fanning them out into an outstretched chord. Her gentle pressure caused Caroline's fingers to depress the keys.

"D major-it's the ceremonial key. Proud, triumphant even. Often overwhelming."

The large pipes reverberated and Caroline felt the hair on the nape of her neck rise up involuntarily,

"It is still shocking".

The bass pipes vibrations thrummed in Caroline's throat. Dust motes danced in the late afternoon rays as though the particles were charged with the energy emanating from the organ pipes. Kate turned to look at her, framed in the same golden light, quizzical and smiling.

"It is certainly something," Caroline began.

"What is?"

"This."

Bending her head, she looked down at the younger woman. A few beats passed and when Kate did not avoid her gaze, Caroline pressed her lips against Kate's, as though trying to transmit the humming energy of the pipes to her. The last harmonics that had been reverberating through the chapel faded and shifted, evening out and dissipating as their kiss deepened.

Kate broke the kiss and held her gaze unabashed. "It's on the playlist in my head. When I look at you, I hear Zadok the Priest."


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay. The tribulations of having little ones means that any writing is a bit tricky. Hope you like. Do say if you do, then I might post another. Thanks to my beta, BK, for the cheerleading and the handy teachery advice.

IN CAMERA, Part 2 of ?

Kate was trying hard to remain focused on the discussion at hand as Glenda Aspinall droned on at her staff members regarding the changing marking criteria for the examining board. Glenda's delivery was as uninspired as the clothes she wore. For the sake of utility and parsimony, she tended to revolve a limited wardrobe on a fortnightly basis. Today, was a 1970's paisley patterned dress of indeterminate colour and shape she had probably acquired in her first days of teaching.

From the corner of her eye, Kate could see Michael scribbling notes into his pad. He smirked at her and underlined a sentence of his florid cursive script.

"Sperm frock: must be Tuesday."

Stifling a laugh, she looked straight ahead.

"Any new proposals?" murmured Glenda Armitage in her unremitting monotone.

At that point, Michael shifted in his seat and coughed lightly.

"Thank you, Glenda. I have been working on something."

Michael then began a lively pitch of his Hands across Europe scheme. Since he and Kate had joined the school a couple of years previously, they had spent many evenings in the language labs, taking down ancient posters of the Eiffel Tower and maps showing La Rochelle, and righting the wrongs of the stultifying modern language department. Michael was forthright and sharply dressed in contrast to his woolly colleagues. His boyishly charming if slightly gossipy demeanour was alloyed with an obvious ambition for early promotion. Promotion as though by birthright, Caroline had thought after her first private meeting with him.

Within a few weeks of his first term, he had a coterie of adolescent girls, rather keener on French since his arrival. A popularity that was mirrored in the girls'own mothers, who were quick to look him out on his first parents' evening. He had, there was no more apposite term, "worked the hall", chatting over the tea urn and offering the tin of chocolate biscuits, usually reserved for the governors, to all comers. Even Gavin, the Chair of the board of governors had commented to Caroline that he was a "Young Turk", with more than a hint of tacit approval.

Caroline barely listened to his presentation as she pondered the day's workload, rejigging meetings and mentally redrafting her introduction to the latest version of the school's prospectus. But her lack of attentiveness did not extend to Kate.

It had been a three weeks since the incident in the chapel. She had been overwhelmed with work since then, not admitting to herself that her requests to her secretary to fill up her diary and field her calls was also an effective strategy in avoiding Kate. But her absence at the Modern Language's departmental termly planning meeting would have been noted by more than her friend. She couldn't be seen to be losing her grip, especially not in front of Michael Dobson.

She had been watching Kate and Michael's exchange from the end of the board table, where she sat. Caroline remembered how earlier he had opened the door for Kate, and Caroline had noticed how he had clasped Kate's shoulder protectively, as though to reassure her. The chivalrous attention had struck Caroline as one that assumed ownership.

An unnamed sensation rose in her throat and she put her elegant fingers over the meeting papers, her right hand covering her wedding band and engagement ring on her left as though to ward off any ministrations from Kate, John, or Michael even.

Caroline rationalised her feelings into a professional concern for a close friend. Kate and Michael's rapport and amiable chatter was as easy as her encounters with Kate were fraught. She had initially approved of it, assuming that new teachers needed to work well together. But of late she had noted that it was Michael who slid to the front, taking extensive credit with Glenda Aspinall for their joint initiatives in the classroom.

As Michael wrapped up his presentation for the A level students' Maastricht project, he waited for the fulsome praise he had come to expect. All the staff looked towards Caroline for an initial comment. She gathered her thoughts into what she hoped would be taken as an astutely considered appraisal.

"It is a commendable idea, Michael, but since it is untested, I don't think it would be wise to roll it out widely as yet."

Michael went on undeterred, confident that she could be convinced of his scheme's merit. "Caroline, I wouldn't be quite so precipitous as to dismiss it out of hand, since we will be exposing our most talented pupils to opportunities beyond the usual Oxbridge college milk round" he began.

Caroline prickled with animosity, "Michael, when you can sit down with Glenda and demonstrate how you are going to fund this project with its transport and accommodation costs from the department's current budget, I will give it further consideration. At the moment, with the number of students you propose to take to Belgium, I cannot see this as much more than pointless gallivanting for a bunch of Eurovision politico wannabes playing pretendy parliament."

When Michael silently gobbled in astonishment, Kate felt compelled to speak up, irked by Caroline's curt dismissal. "Michael has put a lot of work in. This is worth rather more of your time, Caroline."

"I beg your pardon?" Caroline looked with opprobrium at Kate, who untypically for her, held her gaze.

As the bell for the end of the day rang, the other teachers fidgeted, so that Glenda called a close to the meeting. "Perhaps, we could follow this up later, Caroline, in a smaller session?" Caroline nodded her assent and stood up to leave.

Michael looked at Kate expectantly. "Let's regroup-Judge's Inn, 7:30, are you coming?"

"Is later still on?" Kate called after Caroline. "The rehearsal?" Caroline berated herself. She had forgotten that there was a long-standing tradition that the choir's first rehearsal that Kate led, was attended by the headmistress. Under Kate's enquiring gaze, Caroline vacillated between longing and confusion. Unsettled, she retreated into her habitual diffidence.

"It's not vital, is it? We can rearrange". Caroline spoke lightly over her shoulder, as she retreated from the room. Kate smiled over-brightly at Michael. "Just give me one second", and slipped out of the door.

She saw Caroline disappear into the massed student throng, pouring out of their final lessons. Hurrying past the hubbub of jostling children, she caught up to her. Walking beside her, she spoke a little resentfully, "I didn't get a proper answer."

"You did. Go to your rehearsal and then to the pub, Kate." Kate stole a sidelong glance at her friend. Caroline's face was unreadable. At once, her bewilderment at Caroline's aberrant behaviour coaleased into frustration. Frustration she did little to hide.

"Why are avoiding me? Why are you complicating matters?" Kate snapped.

Caroline sped up so that Kate, despite being taller, had to skip a couple of steps to keep up. Caroline's low voice was edged with a brittle sharpness,

"Because that is precisely what this is; complicated. Let me state the blindingly obvious. One, I am still married. Two, I have two teenage sons at this school. Three, I haven't a clue what I think about you, about us, or anything of any substance at the moment. Aptly demonstrated by that farce of a meeting just now. Which, I could add, you didn't assist in."

Kate was bewildered. "What, what? Are you calling me unprofessional", indignation drawing out a dusk flush on her reddening cheeks.

"Four," ran on Caroline, "it is not as though you are short of other more attractive offers. Look, if you don't want to do this anymore, I get it. I mean, who needs this much of a headache."

"If I what?..Whoa, back up, where the hell has this come from?" thinking Kate furiously.

"You think.." she spoke deliberately as a latent suspicion dawned on her. Stopping in the middle of the steps, Kate said,

"He's a mate. You are kidding me?"

She looked down at Caroline's stricken face, who was standing a few steps further down the staircase. Realising she was serious, Kate lightly touched her elbow and marched down a further narrower flight of stairs, and off along a corridor that telescoped into a door marked Staff Only. Caroline step slowed, excusing herself,

"I've got to go. I have a meeting with the bursar in fifteen minutes."

Steering her into the bookroom, and shutting the door behind them, Kate said firmly, "Simon, will wait."

The bookroom was no more than a glorified stationery cupboard and unofficial common room. It was primarily where the language department stored its textbooks, recording equipment for the examinations and other teaching detritus. Crammed into the room were a couple of old chesterfield armchairs and a battered sofa, recycled from the former headteacher's office. Someone, in former days, had attempted to brighten the place with a couple of Toulouse Latrec prints, but their dog-eared corners and the sun-faded grey billowing skirts of can can dancers gave the teachers' refuge an even more forlorn and grubby aspect.

Caroline's phone began its incessant chirping, but before she bring it to her ear, Kate swiped it out of her grasp.

"Hi Simon. It's Kate..." She paused, "Oh yes, Caroline is about. Look, can I ask you a favour? It would be so kind of you if you might give me a little while."

She covered the speaker and mimed at Caroline to shush. "Oh yes...just nipped away." She let out a laugh.

"I'll be sure to tell her."

"What is he saying?" mouthed Caroline agitatedly.

"OK. bye, bye".

Kate cut the call. She indicated to Caroline to sit down. She had had enough of Caroline's prevaricating, "You are jealous of Michael."

"Not likely. That jumped up little twerp. He's after my job. He and Gavin play squash together. Did you know that?"

"You were being imperious and unreasonable. He was visibly hurt by what you said."

"Well he can take a ticket and join the queue," scoffed Caroline. She was used to making unpopular decisions. She had become headmistress due to her incisive leadership rather than on her approval ratings amongst staff members.

"It was unnecessary. And worst of all, it was unkind." Kate's quietly delivered statement with gently reproachful eyes made Caroline's temporary rancour towards Michael evaporate.

"I... I..." Caroline paused to consider her feelings, for the first time in longer than she cared to remember. She paused for breath and at last she spoke truthfully,"I envy him. I envy his freedom. I have obligations. I haven't even begun to consider the boys' needs properly."

"You don't have to do this alone, you know." Kate waited for the offer to sink in. She sat down on the sofa next to Caroline. "I am here for you. I can be your friend, if that is what you need." Kate knew she was making a reckless proposal where she would, in all likelihood, lose out. But she spoke out in spite of herself.

"Take a month. If I hear more from you about us, then good. If I don't, I'll assume you have unfinished business."

"But I can't offer you what you want."

"What I want..." Kate sighed and trailed her hand in the air, placing her fingers to Caroline's lips for the lightest benediction. She ran her thumb against Caroline's cheek to clear stray blonde hairs that had fallen in front of her face. It was a simple tender gesture that had Caroline both enthralled and unfairly vulnerable. Kate saw in that moment a chance to steal something for herself.

Afterwards, Kate teased Caroline. "Really? Michael Dobson? What were you thinking?" straining to keep the incredulity out of her voice.


	3. Chapter 3

in camera Part 3 of ?

**Sorry this has been sat on my to do list for an age. Life just has an irritating habit of getting in the way. Had to dig out a copy of Wheelock's Grammar for this -kudos to all those tortured by the same textbook. Thanks to Becky for Beta duties.**

"What part of 'felicitas sapientia et integritas' do you people not understand?"

Most of the pupils looked up in consternation at the formidable voice of their headmistress. Only the table in the far left hand corner did not respond. Caroline saw Martin (Mav) Clayburn smirking while his mate, Tom Harper, whispered something almost definitely disgusting into his friend's ear. Clayburn continued to look down under the lip of their shared table, eyes hooded.

The rabble subsided into a woeful silence that lasted for more than a minute. As Caroline opened her mouth to unleash a tirade, Mav cleared his throat interrupting her,

"We understand it fine, Miss."

Caroline bridled. She was used to be addressed as "Dr Elliot" as Sulgrave's custom of using titles and surnames for teaching staff imposed a minimum level of courtesy. But, typically Mav opted for the more generic form of address of 'Sir' or 'Miss' delivered with a subtle but perceptible undercurrent of disdain.

"It means, 'happiness, wisdom and integrity.'"

Her angry rhetorical opening question was losing its impact as the class began to fidget.

"We were just working on the happiness part, Miss." Mav added. He looked around the room to his open-mouthed counterparts before delivering his punch line with deliberate slowness. "Doing exactly what we felt like on a Monday morning."

Caroline felt a ripple of tense excitement in the classroom as the pupils fixed their eyes on her, wondering with some relish how she might react to his insubordination.

"Since you are so willing to give us a Latin lesson, Mr Clayburn, you had better come to the front." The headmistress responded carefully.

Mav ambled up to the front with practised insouciance. His early career at Sulgrave had been noted for his industry without giftedness, but since September the reverse seemed to be the marker of his latter teenage years. His GP father had the necessary connections at the golf club and elsewhere amongst Harrogate's great and good to insure his son against future unemployment, his haphazard academic results notwithstanding. Winding up the teachers was his particular specialty. A role that he pursued with a keen enthusiasm, almost equal to his habit of avoiding hard work when a easy shortcut presented itself.

"Spell it on the board, please." Caroline asked him with studied politeness.

Hitching up his low slung trousers Mav, wrote out the school motto with a flourish on the whiteboard, followed by a doodle of a smiley face, which sent a nervous titter through his more impressionable classmates.

Caroline's face remained impassive. She raced through a few sarcastic rejoinders in her head, before opting to set a more pedagogically useful ambush.

"Perfectly spelt, Mr Clayburn. Congratulations." she acknowledged curtly. She had expected nothing less from the intelligent, if bone-idle, boy.

"Now parse it."

Mav frowned.

"Come on Mr Clayburn. It is not difficult. Parse it for the class's erudition." She enunciated her following instructions, as though addressing a slower pupil, "Break down the sentence into its component parts of speech, describing the form, function and syntactic relationship of each word. We are all waiting."

He remained silent.

"I'll give you the first word for free to help you out. 'Felicitas'-the one word with which you are so familiar. From felicitas, felicitatis-third declension, gender feminine. Singular, nominative case indicating it is the subject of the sentence. Meaning-happiness."

The boy bluffed his way though the remaining part of the motto, requiring only a small correction of the appropriate declension for integritas. Sensing from the attentiveness of his captivated audience that he was succeeding in the headmistress's challenge, he spoke with increasing fluency and confidence.

Caroline picked up a marker pen. Adding the word, "per" to the beginning of the motto and an additional "m" on the end of "sapientia." She turned to him.

"Lovely, Mr Clayburn. You are doing so well. 'Per felicitas sapientiam et integritas- translate as amended please."

He stared at the whiteboard blankly. He had blustered his way through the headmistress's first task. This was beyond him. There was a longer silence. "It is only three small letters, Mr Clayburn."

More time passed. The mood shifted away from supporting his gambit, and his arrogant demeanour began to slip into scarlet-faced embarrassment.

"Empty your back trouser pockets please, Clayburn." He scowled at her, hands to clamped to his sides. "Now," she thundered. He took out his iphone and sulkily held it out, still maintaining truculent eye contact with a clearly irritated headmistress.

Taking the phone proffered to her, Caroline lowered her voice. It was time to take the matter down a notch or two to the level the minor skirmish deserved.

"Anyone else?" Caroline raised an eyebrow at the rest of the class, who all studiously avoided eye contact."

"Come on" She pointed up at her face, mugging a deliberately exaggerated frown, "See this 9F, this is my disappointed face and you are wearing it out."

She turned to Kate, her tone more conciliatory.

"Ms McKenzie, would you care to enlighten the class of the meaning of the motto as I have amended it?"

"Certainly, Dr Elliot." Kate injected, her mellifluous way of speaking smoothing over the belligerent atmosphere.

"Per is a preposition. It is used before a noun to modify it. It means "through". Since latin is a highly inflected language it uses word endings rather than word order to indicate meaning. The order of words in Latin aren't important in making sense of a sentence, unlike the English language. It is like a pair matching game. You have to then look at the sentence again and try to spot the noun that relates to it from its word ending."

Kate paused waiting for the less bright class members to catch up. The more conscientious pupils at the front tables had already opened their exercise books and started making notes.

In this case, the preposition 'per' is modifying the noun, "sapientia". When using this specific preposition the accompanying noun takes the accusative case."

Picking up the highlighter, she circled the word "per" and drew an arrow towards the word for wisdom, underlining its ending.

"Hence the ending for 'sapientia' changes to 'sapientiam'. So if we look at our motto again thus amended, 'Per felicitas sapientiam et integritas' now translates as, "Through wisdom, happiness and integrity."

Caroline nodded her approval at Kate's concise summary.

"Thank you, Ms McKenzie. We are all a little more informed. Clayburn, you will now surmise that integrity is recognising that the subterfuge use of google is not an adequate substitute for application."

She held the phone out just above his nose.

"And I am choosing to importune your happiness a little further this afternoon. You can collect your iphone from me at my office after school and detention." She waved her hand in Mav's direction to dismiss him, but still addressing his retreating form.

"Perhaps you will apply the common wisdom of this school by remembering that phones are kept in lockers during class. I would hate to have to come in here again to conduct another impromptu Classics lesson."

The class groaned in agreement, while Mav who had returned to his seat slumped into his chair a little further, pondering how he was going to explain his late return home to his dad.

"Now Ms McKenzie will demonstrate to you all that her German class is a much more attractive option at the beginning of the week. Good morning 9F."

"Good morning, Dr Elliott", intoned the class monotonously.

As Caroline swept out of the class, she felt spritely, quite invigorated after the tussle.

Kate called into Caroline's room soon after the bell rang for the end of the school day.

"Kate, is Mav Clayburn signed into detention?"

"He is sitting in front of Michael Dobson as we speak. I think he is having him work through the use of the German term, werden with the passive tense for his pains, poor thing". Kate flopped into the chair opposite Caroline's desk, sighing in relief as her heels throbbed a little less.

"He is an arrogant little shit, Kate, impervious to any attempt to inspire him to learn some humility," muttered Caroline as she searched through a stack of papers.

"Bit harsh!"

"I wasn't talking about Mav." Caroline peered mischievously over her rimless spectacles and Kate was disarmed.

"Really, you are going to have to get over it."

"My rival for your attentions. I'll meet him on the rugby pitch at dawn, if necessary. I'm a crack shot, well that's what Lawrence's xbox tells me."

"You'd fall over, if you pivoted on those heels."

"For you, I'd go down in my best Blahniks"

At that, Kate lent over the desk, placing her hand over the papers Caroline was reading. Acting on the image that sprang from Caroline's last comment, Kate whispered into her ear,

"Is that a threat or an offer?"


End file.
